Bless Its Pointed Little Head [Live, Original recording remastered]

The favourite album of each member of the Airplane, Bless Its Pointed Little Head captures the band at the height of their powers in their most natural setting, live in front of an audience at familiar halls. This album was recorded at Bill Graham's two venues; mostly at Fillmore West in their native San Francisco in October 1968, a month after their legendary performance at London's Roundhouse, which I was lucky enough to attend, but a couple of tracks from New York's Fillmore East the following month, though the recordings have been mixed together to represent an abbreviated concert, and presented as was, without any post-gig sweetening or overdubs, and including the daringly improvised combined pieces Turn Out The Lights/Bear Melt from New York.

Although their album Crown of Creation had just reached the shops, nothing from that album is included, perhaps because those new songs had yet to find their evolved forms in live performance. The live versions of former singles It's No Secret, Somebody To Love and Plastic Fantastic Lover (the B-side of White Rabbit) show that these had been utterly transformed on stage. They are therefore not merely live souvenirs of well-known material, but reinventions, valuable documentations of what the Airplane were all about as a live band. Apart from a startlingly fresh and extendedly transcendental performance of former album track 3/5's Of A Mile In 10 Seconds, the rest of the album features material not available in studio form.

Fat Angel, written by Donovan, was an obvious choice for the band to cover as it includes the line, "Fly Jefferson Airplane, gets you there on time", interpreted at a metaphysical level and accompanied by some fittingly spacey musical exploration. Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were the Airplane's blues aficionados and led the band through an extended extemporization of Rock Me Blues, probably learned from BB King but a traditional blues developed through earlier recordings by Arthur Crudup, Lil' Son Jackson, Muddy Waters, Big Bill Broonzy and others. The band's folksier origins are represented by Paul Kantner taking the lead on Fred Neil's Other Side Of This Life, an established stage favourite otherwise unrecorded by the band.

Therefore, there was little to deter owners of the Airplane's four albums released to date from acquiring this, their first and best live album, and on release in January 1969 it reached number 17 in the US album charts in a 20-week chart run, remaining a consistent favourite with buyers ever since, having been re-issued on CD several times.

This edition from 2004 has been remastered from the original tapes by Bob Irwin and also includes three previously unreleased live bonus tracks: Today (originally from Surrealistic Pillow), Watch Her Ride and Won't You Try/Saturday Afternoon (all from After Bathing At Baxter's). The notes indicate that these were intended for the album but left off due to time constraints. It's noticeable, though, that all three come from a slightly later night at the Fillmore West, namely November 5th, and have a markedly different live sound balance to those on the album, though they are fine versions. This is presumably due to the band's live psychedelic sound man Owsley Stanley III, who also worked with the Grateful Dead, rather than the album's balance engineer Richie Schmitt.

In the CD and DVD-Audio era it would be good to have some of these memorable concerts made available in full, as the Grateful Dead have done with their Dick's Picks and other series. In the meantime, this edition is clearly the one to choose in preference to earlier editions, to enjoy a prime West Coast band at their peak.

Certainly the greatest live album from the psychedelic era (sorry Dead Heads, but it's true), brilliant performances well recorded, carefully sequenced, and mixed and mastered to perfection. That's the original album I'm talking about, the one that rounds out with Grace's 'Uh, you can move your rear ends now, right? Thank you, good night'.
If only... because this CD has 3 'bonus' tracks appended. The notes say that they were intended for inclusion in 1968, but frankly I don't believe it. They're from different concerts to the originals, and although they're good performances well recorded, the sound quality is simply not up to the standard of the earlier tracks, which leaves the disc playing out on a very flat note. It's a dilemma. We all want to have bonus tracks, and these are definitely worth having, but the price is a diminished impact for the disc as a whole.
As good as this is, I prefer listening to 'Sweeping Up the Spotlight' for its consistent sound quality. My five stars here is for the original set; the bonus tracks just about manage three.

From the heyday of the psychedelic rock era in San Francisco, the album, "Bless Its Pointed Little Head", is a fine recording of a live concert by one of the city's best-known and much-loved bands, The Jefferson Airplane. The concert was recorded, in late 1968, at the venerable rock temple, The Fillmore East, in New York City, and also at its sister venue in San Francisco, The Fillmore West, both owned by one-time Airplane manager, Bill Graham. Combining the powerful vocal mix of Grace Slick, Marty Balin, and Paul Kantner, with the musicianship of Jorma Kaukonen, lead guitarist extraordinaire, Jack Casady, bassist, and Spencer Dryden, drummer, you have an exceptional example here of psychedelic rock, San Francisco-style, at its best recorded live. For instance, give a listen to the intense interaction between the vocals of singer, Marty Balin, and the lead guitar work of Jorma Kaukonen on the song, "Plastic Fantastic Lover", something that is definitely missing on all studio recordings of this song. The energy is phenomenal. Or, give a listen to the intricate interplay, for more than six minutes, no less, between bass, rhythm guitar, and lead guitar on the song, "The Other Side of This Life." Superb.